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Most of the problematic hires do not interview poorly. The trouble may only become evident once the person starts working. An interview reveals only a portion of how a job seeker behaves in the workplace.
The pre-employment behavioural assessment provides employers with one more structured source of information prior to hiring. The assessment looks at the characteristics of reliability, integrity, safety, behaviour, and reaction to stress.
This blog explains what a pre-employment behavioural assessment is, what it evaluates, how it differs from psychometric testing, what candidates need to do, and how the assessment results can help in the hiring process.
What is a pre-employment behavioural assessment?
The pre-employment behavioural assessment makes use of a number of systematic processes to evaluate how potential employees are likely to react in various kinds of work situations. It helps to pinpoint characteristics such as reliability, integrity, and safety awareness in challenging situations. This provides employers with additional evidence when making hiring decisions.
Additionally, one should not forget that behavioural screening cannot substitute for mental health screening. It does not provide information about mental health problems of a person or make predictions about future behaviour.
What Is a Pre-Employment Behavioural Assessment?
Behaviour tests for pre-employment are commonly completed prior to the final hiring decision.
This kind of testing employs a structured questionnaire and realistic work scenarios to collect data on a candidate’s behaviour in common work-related situations.
The responses will then be rated, and a report about the effectiveness of the candidate will be generated for the employer.
Candidates can access the assessment online, with this process taking about 10-15 minutes, and can be taken using either a phone or computer.
⚡️How does it work?
Candidate completes assessment → Answers are scored → Report is generated → Employer verifies relevant areas → Hiring decision
This is what distinguishes a workplace behavioural assessment from merely asking the candidate how they would react in an interview.
📌 What is behavioural screening?
Behavioural screening is a systematic process of gathering information about the behavioural characteristics pertinent to work before hiring, without conducting any health or psychological diagnosis.
Note: Behavioural assessment is not the same as a mental health screening process. It must be considered as part of the total recruitment process.
Behavioural Assessment vs Psychometric Testing: What Is the Difference?
💡Are behavioural assessment and psychometric testing the same thing?
Not at all! They evaluate different aspects. The concept of behavioural assessment deals with workplace behaviour or how an individual reacts to specific work-related situations. While psychometric tools may measure intelligence, aptitude, personality, etc. The nature of testing can vary, depending on the assessment.
| Assessment | What It May Measure | Best Used For | Candidate Experience |
|---|---|---|---|
| Behavioural assessment | Workplace behaviour such as reliability, integrity, safety, compliance, conduct and responses under pressure | Roles where conduct, safety, reliability or trust matter | AusRehab: around 10–15 minutes online |
| Psychometric assessment | May include cognitive ability, aptitude, personality or other work-related areas | Roles requiring broader aptitude, personality or cognitive information | Varies by assessment |
| Pre-employment medical or functional screening | Health or functional capacity relevant to the inherent requirements of the job | Roles with physical, medical or safety requirements | Clinical or functional assessment |
Behavioural, psychometric and medical or functional assessments answer different recruitment questions.
How Does AusRehab’s Behavioural Assessment Differ From Other Pre-Employment Assessments?
Behavioural, psychometric and medical or functional assessments answer different recruitment questions. AusRehab’s behaviour assessment focuses on employees’ workplace behaviour. Other assessments examine a person’s ability to meet the tasks and requirements of the role in terms of health or functionality.
Why Employers Use Behavioural Assessments Before Hiring
Hiring an unsuitable candidate is likely to incur costs that go beyond recruitment.
Consider the time spent on onboarding and training, the support from management, the time lost in productivity, and the turnover of employees due to another recruitment round.
Behavioural assessments can be used in the recruitment process as another fact-based piece of evidence before hiring.
This can be useful where a role depends heavily on:
- Reliability and follow-through
- Trust and integrity
- Safety and compliance
- Appropriate workplace conduct
- Staying composed under pressure
Performing an assessment of hiring risk does not ensure that an employer avoids a bad hiring decision. Rather, it provides additional data that may enable the employer to ask better questions and analyse important aspects of a situation prior to making a choice.
⚡️ Myth vs Reality
Myth: An assessment of an individual’s behaviour provides precise insight into how that person will act at the workplace.
Reality: Assessment of a person’s behaviour can be used to obtain information about the person. But it should always be used in combination with interviewing, reference checking, credentials verification, and other types of checks of candidates prior to hiring.
The SIRA also stresses the importance of utilising relevant information from many different sources when conducting workplace assessments, rather than relying on only one source
What Does a Pre-Employment Behavioural Assessment Measure?
A good employee behaviour assessment is one that looks for relevant behaviours for that particular job position.
AusRehab’s assessment looks at five major areas concerning workplace behaviour. It is designed around real-life situations rather than clinical diagnosis.
| Behaviour Area | What It Looks At |
|---|---|
| Dependability and follow-through | Completing commitments, raising problems early and following through on tasks |
| Integrity and accountability | Accurate records, confidentiality, honesty, ownership of mistakes and accountability |
| Safety and compliance | Following procedures, completing required checks, staying within authorisation and escalating risks |
| Respectful conduct and boundaries | Respectful interactions, appropriate boundaries and responses during difficult conversations |
| Self-regulation under pressure | Staying organised, task-focused and composed when work becomes difficult |
Together, these behaviour areas provide a broader view of how a candidate may approach responsibilities, workplace standards and challenging situations.
All these aspects can contribute to developing the reliability assessment for employees, workplace behaviour assessment, safety behaviour assessment, and behavioural risk assessment, which can be required in the context of recruitment.
📌 What is behavioural risk screening?
Behavioural risk screening is a type of assessment that identifies behaviour connected with work that may require further investigations. It does not forecast future misconduct or guarantee good performance.
What Questions Are Included in a Behavioural Assessment?
Candidates do not have to learn answers as well as study for a regular examination.
AusRehab provides an assessment consisting of 50 questions arranged in various question types. The questions are in accordance with average actions and situations at place of employment.
| Question Format | What Candidates May See | What It Helps Assess |
|---|---|---|
| Habit questions | Questions about how often they usually behave in certain ways at work | Behaviour patterns and consistency |
| Self-rating questions | Agreement scales around work-related statements | Workplace attitudes and self-reported tendencies |
| Real-world scenarios | A workplace situation with response choices | Judgement and decision-making |
| Response consistency checks | Statements designed to identify unlikely or inconsistent response patterns | Reliability and interpretability of answers |
The assessment uses different question formats to gather information about workplace behaviour.
📌 How long does the assessment take?
The pre-employment behavioural evaluation at AusRehab takes about 10-15 minutes. It can be done online via a mobile phone or computer and does not require scheduling an appointment.
A “no relevant experience” response can be given by those who are fresh graduates, in early-career roles, or switching industries. It is important because the applicant should not be forced to say they have prior experience when they don’t have any.
What Does the Behavioural Assessment Report Tell the Employer?
The assessment will not produce a simple pass or fail result.
In fact, the behavioural assessment report gives an employer the result of the assessment and highlights areas where more checking should be done. The report is supposed to assist but not replace the overall hiring process of the employer.
| Report Outcome | Recommended Next Step |
|---|---|
| Progress | Continue the normal recruitment process |
| Progress with targeted verification | Follow up specific areas with the candidate or referees |
| Further information required | Gather additional information before deciding |
| Do not progress | Review the identified concerns before proceeding |
| Unable to interpret / retest | Consider retesting where the response pattern is not sufficiently reliable |
A report outcome can help guide the next stage of the recruitment process. The appropriate next step will depend on the findings and whether further clarification or verification is required.
⚠️ What is targeted verification?
Targeted verification refers to the process of confirming the findings of a specific section of the report by using relevant follow-up questions or other recruitment evidence. This is a key aspect of successful assessment of candidate behaviour.
📌 Note: A behavioural assessment is only one piece of evidence in the hiring process. Even if it will assist in making informed decisions, at the end of the day, the hiring decision rests solely with the employer.
Which Roles Benefit Most From Behavioural Screening?
Job positions do not often involve the same screening methods for recruitment.
The behavioural assessment may be a valuable asset to the hiring process where trust, safety, reliability, behaviour, and decision-making matter a lot.
| Role or Industry | Why Behavioural Information May Be Useful |
|---|---|
| Aged care , disability support and healthcare | Trust, boundaries, reliability and respectful conduct |
| Security and corrections | Judgement, boundaries and behaviour under pressure |
| Construction, transport and warehousing | Safety awareness, compliance and escalation |
| Plant and safety-critical roles | Following procedures and responding appropriately to risks |
| Roles handling money or sensitive information | Integrity, accountability and reliability |
| High-volume recruitment | Provides a consistent assessment point across candidates |
The above are some of the examples of roles where behavioural information may add value to recruitment.
Does Behavioural Assessment Help With Workplace Safety?
Behaviour in the workplace can matter in certain high-responsibility job types.
For instance, a worker might be obliged to comply with certain operational procedures, work within limits of their authority and notify others of any threat or risk.
⚠️Compliance Guardrail: Behavioural screening should not replace other safety measures. It is mandatory that the employer provides adequate development and implementation efforts to have solid workplace systems implemented.
📌 Safety note: Behavioural screening should be treated as one recruitment input. It does not satisfy an employer’s broader WHS responsibilities.
What a Pre-Employment Behavioural Assessment Won't Tell You
Any meaningful pre-employment behavioural assessment process needs to be precise about what it can and cannot do.
While it can provide some useful insights, it is not capable of answering all recruitment queries.
A behavioural assessment does not:
- Diagnose a mental health condition.
- Guarantee future behaviour.
- Measure technical skills.
- Verify qualifications.
- Measure physical capacity.
- Replace a structured interview.
- Replace referee checks.
- Replace relevant background checks.
- Replace role-specific medical check or functional assessment.
This is why candidate behavioural screening should sit within a broader recruitment process.
💡Quick Tip
Do not rely on the result from the behavioural assessment only. Make sure you use the result in connection with information gathered in the course of interviews and reference checks.
📌 Is behavioural assessment a personality test?
Not necessarily. A behavioural assessment may only focus on work-related behaviour in the work environment, while personality tests may examine other personality features depending on the given method.
Where Does Behavioural Assessment Fit Into the Hiring Process?
There is no standard recruitment process that fits all employers.
The sequence of recruitment procedures depends on the position, company, and type of pre-employment assessment used by the employer.
📌 One possible process is:
Application → Structured interview → Behavioural assessment → Targeted verification → Referee and background checks → Relevant health or functional screening → Hiring decision
When Should Behavioural Assessment Accompany a Physical Assessment?
Both behavioural and physical assessments answer separate questions.
Thus, the use of both pre-employment behavioural assessments and pre-employment physical assessments can be proper when behaviour and the requirements of physical jobs matter.
| Screening Type | What It Helps Assess |
|---|---|
| Behavioural assessment | Workplace behavioural patterns relevant to the role |
| Pre-employment medical | Health considerations relevant to the inherent requirements of the job |
| Functional assessment | Physical capacity against job demands |
| Audiometry | Hearing where relevant to the role |
| Drug and alcohol screening | Relevant substance screening according to employer requirements |
Different pre-employment assessments can address different parts of candidate suitability.
A pre-employment medical assessment is not a substitute for behavioural assessment. Likewise, behavioural assessment cannot substitute for functional assessment.
Overall, a combination of pre-employment tests allows one to get a complete picture of a candidate when it comes to recruitment in case such information is needed. This video offers a practical overview of how they can support better hiring decisions.
AusRehab's Pre-Employment Behavioural Assessment
The pre-employment behavioural assessment of AusRehab provides an organised and comprehensive way to obtain data about the candidate’s working habits prior to making a hiring decision.
The assessment is:
- Curated and tested by a registered psychologist in Australia.
- Completed online.
- Designed to take around 10 to 15 minutes.
- Available via phone or computer.
- Priced at $75 excluding GST per candidate, subject to final client confirmation.
- Designed to provide a clear report outcome and areas for targeted verification.
- Able to run alongside other AusRehab pre-employment screening services.
📌 Key note:
The purpose of AusRehab assessment is to obtain accurate and structured information, which would help in being able to ask good follow-up questions and make educated conclusions about potential candidates.
Key Takeaways:
- An assessment of behaviour carried out prior to employment is another method of collecting structured information that will guide employers on whether or not to employ a person.
- Such an assessment could check the aspects of reliability, integrity, safety and compliance, behaviour and conduct under pressure.
- The pre-employment behavioural assessment is distinct from personality testing and psychometric assessment.
- It will not diagnose any mental health issues nor will it guarantee any future behaviour.
- The findings must be interpreted side-by-side with interviews, referees, and other relevant screenings.
- This assessment can be particularly valuable in jobs where reliability, safety, and conduct play important roles.
- The pre-employment behavioural assessment resembles a method of assessing worker behaviour rather than replacing another hiring stage.
Make Your Next Hiring Decision With More Information
Interviews provide employers with important information about applicants but will not tell them how they will behave in the workplace on a daily basis.
The pre-employment behavioural assessment conducted by AusRehab allows employers to have additional practical information before making the job offer.
Talk to the AusRehab team about the behavioural assessment.
You can also take a look at AusRehab’s wider pre-employment screening services where other role-specific checks may be required.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is a pre-employment behavioural assessment?
A pre-employment behavioural assessment is defined as a form of evaluation that is used in pre-employment circumstances. It includes evaluation of some factors such as dependability, integrity, safety, manner of working and behaviour under pressure.
What does a pre-employment behavioural assessment measure?
The method includes the assessment of some concrete behaviours being defined in advance such as reliability, integrity, safety, and consideration. The specification of attributes depends on the assessment used.
Is a behavioural assessment the same as a personality test?
No. Behavioural assessment can be determined in relation to behaviour at the workplace and different work-related situations. In contrast, a personality test may explore a wider range of personality traits with the help of various instruments.
What is the difference between behavioural assessment and psychometric testing?
Behavioural assessment refers to specific behaviours and patterns related to job performance. Psychometric testing, on the other hand, is a more general category including the assessment of cognition, attitudes, skills, and other job-related areas.
Does a behavioural assessment test a candidate's mental health?
No. A workplace behavioural assessment cannot be considered a mental health test and cannot be regarded as a diagnosis or psychological assessment.
How long does a pre-employment behavioural assessment take?
AusRehab’s assessment takes approximately 10-15 minutes. It can be done online by a candidate on a phone or computer, without any appointment.
Can a candidate fail a behavioural assessment?
This assessment does not assess candidates according to pass/fail criteria. There can be different results, including progress with verification of specific issues, further information required, or unable to assess/recheck.
Should behavioural assessment replace an interview or referee check?
No. Behavioural assessment should only be one part of recruitment. Employers should consider the results of behavioural assessment together with a structured interview, referee check, qualification check, background check, and any other relevant pre-employment screening process.
Which jobs benefit most from behavioural screening?
It can be used for positions where trust, loyalty, safety, conduct and behaviour under pressure matter. These include the following fields: aged care, health care, disability care, security, construction, transport, and other fields with high responsibility.
Can behavioural screening guarantee a good hire?
No. This method is just one of the ways of assessing it, and it cannot give a 100% prediction. The final decision should be based on the other evidence presented by the candidate and the job requirements.
